Table of Contents

Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-447-3652 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.

URL of the week:
http://www2.dgsys.com/~jlovece/hooha/. "A
magazine about comics from the 1930s to the 1970s, and pulp
magazines." It has just started serializing that classic, THE
STEAM MAN OF THE PRAIRIES. [-ecl]

Diagramming:
I discovered something. I may not be the only person to have
discovered this, but it is a technique that I have found to be very
useful. I am able to display on a piece of paper a graphical
representation of the plot of a book. That may sound like a weird
thing to do, but it is actually very useful. Nobody taught me this
in my English courses, but I wish they would have. I might as well
publish it here as any place.

We were sitting in a theater in London waiting to see RICHARD II by
one William Shakespeare. Oh, it was going to be a thrill to see
the play done by good actors on a stage. (The other interesting
thing I learned that night is not to feel so bad if when I am
talking to someone I accidentally spit on them. Derek Jacobi spits
enough that it can be seen from the cheap seats.) But it was not
an unalloyed thrill to see a Shakespeare play I had never seen
before. It was going to be something of a struggle for me to
figure out what was going on. I am not just talking about the
language. One gets over problems with Shakespeare's flowery 16th
Century prose in a few minutes at the start of the play. But the
characters are somewhat tougher to keep straight and the plot was
complex. It was so complex that the program actually had the plot
printed out. I read it once and found it to be a confusing
hodgepodge of characters and actions. And if this synopsis were
confusing in modern English, how much worse would the actual play
have been?

And so I either invented or reinvented--I do not know which--plot
diagramming. And this is a technique that has stuck with me for
the following decade and perhaps will for the rest of my life. I
realized that there was a way to diagram the plot I was reading to
help keep it straight. I drew an oval on the page for each new
character as they were introduced in the synopsis. If they say
Henry fears Richard, I draw an arrow from Henry's oval to Richard's
and label it "fears." There can be multiple arrows if, say, later
Henry kills Richard. Or there can be arrows in the opposite
direction if that is the way the killing went--and the early kings
of England were a seriously rowdy bunch and arrows could go in all
directions. I treat relationships as actions. If Richard is the
son of John, I draw an arrow from Richard to John and label it
"son."

I cannot fully account for why this technique works as well as it
does, but it seems to organize the plot. Each new sentence of the
plot is not just another piece to remember, it fits into a logical
structure. In addition, I think that the human mind thinks in
pictures. It helps when you see a play acted out that it is the
same actor in a role so you can visually associate that actor with
the character. You cannot do that when you are reading, but it
helps to be able to associate a character with a given position on
a page, particularly if you can see all the other actions that
character has done and that character's relationships. Even before
the play had started I had a really good idea who everybody was and
who was going to do what. When the characters were fleshed out on
the stage I quickly could associate the actor with a position on my
page.

In later days when I refined the technique (and there have been
some refinements, but only minor ones) I might write the actor's
name in the oval. If I want to describe the character, I can put
that in a square at the side and put a little square in the oval to
remind me that there is more. For particularly complex plots I
have connectors that allow me to tie multiple pages together. When
Peter Brook's six-hour MAHABHARATA was shown on PBS there were so
many characters and so much going on that it took four standard
pages to diagram the whole plot with all the characters. The
"Godfather" trilogy of films all fit on one sheet, but it was
complex. In the third film when there are references to the first
film, the original incidents come back immediately to mind. If
that does not sound impressive to you, you have never struggled
with a memory as short as mine is. But even now I can pull out
those diagrams and quickly refresh my memory about the plots.

Now I have the technique and it works. I probably should write a
book on it and sell it. I have seen that done with less. People
can take a few simple memory techniques and write so much about
them in large print that they can get a whole book out of them.
But I haven't the foggiest idea how to stretch this technique out,
so I will just pass the technique on to you. And I think that the
idea may not be all that original in any case. When Gustav
Meyerink was writing the book THE GOLEM he got bogged down and
could not write any more. He admitted to a friend that his problem
was that he had created so many characters that he no longer could
keep them all straight. The friend somehow laid out the characters
on a chessboard and it gave Meyerink enough of an understanding to
return and finish the novel. Nobody has recorded exactly what the
friend laid out on that chessboard or how it worked, but my
suspicion is that it was not a lot different from my plot diagrams.
[-mrl]

Addresses:
The following exchange regarding addresses was found on the Net:

Someone said that in Britain, the Flat (or apartment) comes first,
as in:

Flat 5
12 The Road
Anytown
AT98 9QZ

Patrick Nielsen Hayden replied, "You're trying to convince us that
British addresses follow a rational system, but those of us who
hand-addressed fanzines for years Are Not Fooled. We know that the
typical British address actually looks like this:

He added, "'Doltesterostershire' may be abbreviated 'Dolts.', but
it is always pronounced 'Dosher.'"

Michael R Weholt noted, "Oh, gawd, it's so true. My friend used to
live Nr.Hexham. His address included the name of some hill, a
cryptic reference to somebody-or- other's falling-down Manor House,
and a freehand sketch of a relatively nearby barn. During bad
weather, I took care to include the name of his cat."

"I have a friend who lectures in EU Studies at the University of
Limerick; his address contains no numbers whatsoever. Indeed, some
of the elements are actually in quotes, as though they can't quite
believe themselves."

And Ray Radlein added, "Just to show that it is not uniquely a UKan
problem, there was a time recently when my sister's address was
something like:

Robin Radlein
The Old Stone House on Hwy. 32
Martinsburg, WV

"'The Old Stone House'"? Geez. Why not 'The Big House Just Past
the Dairy Queen on the Left'?"

Just as with Vidal's earlier LIVE FROM GOLGOTHA, I will be
nominating this for a Hugo. Which is to say that, just as with
LIVE FROM GOLGOTHA, I will be throwing away a vote, because the
chances of enough nominating fans 1) reading THE SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION, and 2) considering it as eligible for the Hugo, is
vanishingly small. But hope springs eternal, they say, ...

Just to clear one thing up: THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION is
definitely science fiction. There is time travel, there is
alternate history, there is cloning (of a sort), and there is
transplantation of personality into, well, robots (for lack of a
better term). There is also sex, hence the rather outre cover
which is supposed to parody the typical romance novel cover rather
than seriously place this in that genre (though I think reversing
the two figures would have been even better). One does have the
feeling that the artist at least read the book, though.

T. is a thirteen-year-old student at St. Albans when he is summoned
to the Smithsonian on April 7, 1939. War clouds are gathering, and
he apparently is the one person who can save the world. But first
he must meet the inhabitants of the Smithsonian, including all the
Presidents and First Ladies as well as various anthropological
representatives, all of whom come to life after hours a la the
Twilight Zone episode. While he can't convince anyone to use his
bomb that will destroy buildings but not people (politicos and the
military prefer things the other way around), he also has some
ideas for how to get the world out of its current crisis, which he
foresees as leading to total nuclear war.

It isn't giving anything away to say that T. *does* change
history, but that things don't turn out exactly as planned. Vidal
does a lot of hand-waving about the various time paradoxes
involved, but no more than many other authors. He also spends a
fair amount of time having the various Presidents give their views
on the world situation, what got them into it, and what they should
do about it. As an observer of American historical thought, Vidal
shows us the differences in philosophy among the Presidents: the
isolationists, the expansionists, and so on. Decisions are not
made in a vacuum in this book, but as the result of argument and
discussion among the various philosophies. (One is reminded of the
musical "1776.") Another reviewer has said that Vidal's work is
"all style, no substance, and a pretty boring read," contains a
"long droning narrative on the essence of time," and postulates an
unlikely alternate history. Let me respond to this.

So?

I find the concepts of "all style" and "pretty boring" a bit
contradictory, but in matters of taste there can be no argument, as
they say, so let me just say that if you haven't liked Vidal in the
past you're unlikely to like him here. He concentrates as much on
*how* he says something as on *what* he says. This certainly sets
his work apart from much of the alternate history which is being
written today. This is probably the crux of the dispute here, in
fact. If you want to read this strictly as an alternate history
novel, well, yes, you might say there is not enough of what happens
to change this or cause that. But I tend to dislike that sort of
novel, often full of detailed descriptions of battles, but with
nothing of either characterization or literary style. I love to
wallow in Vidal's excesses of style!

I also found Vidal's narrative on the essence of time not boring at
all, but an interesting explication, if not completely
scientifically rigorous. (It was at least as sensible as Kage
Baker's in THE GARDEN OF IDEN.) And as for the fact that "a lot of
it is the kid talking with dummies," as I said, I found the main
character's discussions with the ex-Presidents, and the discussions
among the ex-Presidents and other characters to be one of the
book's strong points. If you'd rather think of it as having
somehow downloaded their personalities into androids, maybe that
will help. It's an artificial set-up, true, but no more so than
finding God's corpse in James Morrow's TOWING JEHOVAH or having Dr.
Frankenstein's creation as a baseball player in Michael Bishop's
BRITTLE INNINGS. I don't demand hyperrealism of my alternate
histories. (The last person to do that well was Robert Sobel.)
What I look for is an alternate history that tries to say something
about us. At Intersection in 1995, Harry Turtledove said that
alternate history doesn't have to be believable to be good; there
can be a "gonzo" story that was still good, and that in any case,
we do not write about alternate worlds--we write about our world,
and alternate history gives us a different mirror. I find enough
content in what Vidal is trying to say in THE SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION that I am willing to overlook the question of strict
plausibility.

I highly recommend this book to fans of time travel, alternate
history, or sharp commentary on United States history. [-ecl]

To Flanders in 1916 comes Travis Lee Stanhope. He has volunteered
for the British Army, looking for escape and adventure. What he
finds is hell. (As a Southerner, one suspects he refused to listen
to General Sherman's statement along these lines.) Kim Stanley
Robinson summarized it well in "A History of the Twentieth Century,
with Illustrations": 54,000 men who died over a fifteen-year period
are remembered on the Vietnam Memorial. Imagine one of those for
the Triple Entente losses every *six weeks* of the Western front of
World War I, or thirty-five Vietnam Memorials in all, lined up in a
row. Along the Western front, there were 7500 casualties each day,
not in battle, but from sniping; this was called "wastage." This
is particularly noteworthy, because it is as a sniper that Stanhope
comes to Flanders.

Stanhope is an outsider: an American in the British Army, a
Southerner constantly called "Yank," a reader of the Romantic poets
in a company of men more interested in more earthly delights, a man
blessed (or cursed) with "second sight." As such, he finds himself
attracted to other outsiders, and Anthony does a good job of
showing us the many faces of the outsider.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY compares this book to Erich Remarque's ALL QUIET
ON THE WESTERN FRONT. I also saw a lot of parallels between
FLANDERS and Stanley Kubrick's classic film PATHS OF GLORY. There
is the heartlessness of the distant commanders in their commands.
There is the insular attitude, the use of the outsider as
scapegoat. What there is more of in Anthony's novel is the hell of
war, a hell that could not be brought to the screen in the 1950s.
She lays it all out--not just the battles and sniping and
"authorized" killing, but also the disease and the maggots and the
hardening of men's hearts and souls.

Stanhope tries desperately to hold on to his humanity in all this,
but he finds himself gradually sinking further into not just
despair, but death--the death of his soul.

Although the fantasy content is on a much more restrained level
that most fantasy novels, it is necessary to the story. Without
it, Anthony would still have a powerful novel, but a different
novel. As it stands, though, this will be on my Hugo nomination
ballot next year. [-ecl]

Capsule: Harrison Ford and Anne Heche star in
an amiable but very lightweight and familiar
story of two castaways going from hating each
other to falling in love. Director Ivan
Reitman does nothing at all unusual with the
story unless it is to get a non-wooden
performance from Harrison Ford. This is a film
that takes no chances. No guts, no glory, Mr.
Reitman. Rating 5 (0 to 10), high 0 (-4 to +4)
Spoiler Warning: there is a minor spoiler about
the general direction of the plot.

The plot is a perennial one. Films showing people either falling
in love or at least learning to respect each other when they are
stranded someplace together go back at least to a silent version of
the play THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON. Other obvious examples include
Lina Wertmueller's SWEPT AWAY... and perhaps even THE AFRICAN
QUEEN. Ivan Reitman has made inventive comedies in the past, but
this certainly is not one of them. This time he is making a safe
bet, a romantic comedy with a modern young woman marooned on a
paradise island with Harrison Ford. The results are professional
and moderately entertaining, but not very interesting.

Robin Monroe (played by Anne Heche) is a driven magazine editor of
a fringe-sleazy check-out-line women's magazine called DAZZLE. As
a change of pace for her, her boyfriend Frank Martin (David
Schwimmer) has arranged a glamorous South Pacific Island getaway
vacation during which he intends to propose marriage. The island
is beautiful and remote and just about everything is perfect.
There is one minor fly in all this ointment. Robin takes an
instant dislike to Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford), the crude grease
monkey pilot who provides the transportation to and from the island
in his DeHaviland Beaver. Robin was expecting a comfortable
airline sort of plane and in spite of Quinn's assurances that the
Beaver is a great plane, she is afraid to set foot in it.
(Sidenote for plane enthusiasts: Quinn is not alone in his respect
for the Beaver. DeHaviland designed it for limited use in the
Canadian north country but it has proven to be a much more
versatile and durable plane in spite of its non-prepossessing
looks. It has a 48-foot wingspan, is a tad over 30 feet in length,
and stands about 9 feet high. If Robin was expecting a 747, it
certainly was not what she got.) On the flight to the island Quinn
brings along his girlfriend Angelica (Jacqueline Obradors), a show
dancer on the resort island. Angelica only confirms Robin's
attitude toward Quinn.

Once on the island things are going beautifully until Robin is
called away to nearby Tahiti from her getaway for an emergency
shoot for her magazine. Quinn, the often drunken island-hopping
pilot is persuaded to take Robin to Tahiti. He flies her off for
Tahiti right into the teeth of a tropical storm. (Incidentally,
there are nice visuals with first-class model work here showing the
plane in the electrical storm.) A lightning strike on the plane
fries the instruments and his emergency landing on the beach of the
nearest island shears off one of the two landing wheels. So Robin
is marooned on some unknown island with Quinn and they are unable
to radio out. The chances of returning to civilization rapidly
diminish. Meanwhile, on the original resort island, Frank is
getting to know Angelica better. There is little that is
surprising in this or any other supposed plot twists. Neither of
the characters of Frank and Angelica is well written, but not
surprisingly Angelica turns out to be a more interestingly written
character than Frank.

Harrison Ford's acting style is a little misty and distant. He may
be the highest paid actor of all time, but for my taste he does not
emote well. He generally under-acts as if he is half awake. I
cannot put my finger on exactly the difference here, but he seems
at least three-quarters awake. Heche is attractive but only
adequate as an actress. Still, her romantic scenes with Harrison
Ford are certainly credible in spite of claims I have heard that
they are not. People have claimed that she could not do an
adequate love scene with a man because off-screen she prefers
women. I saw no evidence in this film. I found Schwimmer a little
over the top with a Nicholas Cage sort of gawkiness.

The special effects and the island photography, mostly done in
Hawaii, are nice to look at, though there was a slight washed out
look on the print I saw. Some of the action scenes late in the
film seem contrived. Overall this film is watchable but offers
little beyond some light entertainment. It gets a mediocre 5 on
the 0 to 10 scale and a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]